


And Grace Will Lead Us Home

by NeverwinterThistle



Category: Far Cry 5
Genre: F/F, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Canon, Wilderness Survival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-04
Updated: 2018-05-04
Packaged: 2019-05-01 22:33:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14530692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NeverwinterThistle/pseuds/NeverwinterThistle
Summary: It takes days for the smoke to settle. The air is choked with it, heavy and humid; the forests are burning. They run from the flames like frightened deer. Jess leads the way. Grace is not herself.





	And Grace Will Lead Us Home

It takes days for the smoke to settle. The air is choked with it, heavy and humid; the forests are burning. They run from the flames like frightened deer. Jess leads the way. Grace is not herself.

On the third day, the rains come. They dampen down the smoke, mist mingling grey and dreary, and they’re hell for visibility but at least they slow down the fires. They linger, turning the ground to slush, raising the rivers. In the months to come, Grace will wonder about those rains. About what would have happened if they hadn’t come. How long it would have taken her and Jess to die.

She gives thanks for those rains. There’s not much else left to be thankful for.

After the first few days of running themselves to exhaustion, hunkering in ditches and the shadows of rocks, keeping watch, snatching sleep, choking on smoke, they realise they can’t keep it up much longer. And when the rains come and start to pour water on the fires of their own personal hell, they start wanting shelter. Something stronger than a couple of bushes, and safer than anywhere the Peggies once claimed. So they stop running, and start thinking.

Or rather, Grace starts thinking. She’s not really sure what Jess does, but it sure as hell isn’t thinking. Too primal for that. Lizard brain; run, hunt, kill, run. Hard to blame her for that. The world is ending around them.

They end up in the Holland Valley, up in the hills southwest of Rae-Rae’s pumpkin farm. Jess finds the cabin; Grace is too busy peering out into the fading sunset across the valley, the shadows of the apple orchards and the fires in the distant fields. Looking for life. For friends. And she doesn’t find any, but she does turn away when she hears Jess start battering at the planks that have been nailed over the door.

It’s shelter. It’ll do.

The next day is a hard one. In her mind, Grace thinks of it as the first day; it’s not, but she doesn’t really remember the ones that came between that and the end of the world. She rises at dawn like she always does, stiff from sleeping on the edge of an unfamiliar mattress, Jess breathing softly at her back. Stubs her toes several times on the way to the front door, and then opens it to rain, and darkness.

“Great,” she says. “Welcome to the rest of your life, I guess.”

In the bed, Jess grumbles. “Too early.”

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

“Outhouse is around the back,” Jess mutters into the dusty blankets. “It’s not gross. Good luck.”

The ground is muddy, slippery under Grace’s boots. There’s a picnic table at the front of the cabin, littered with old beer bottles and cigarette butts, and that annoys her; as soon as she’s done with her call of nature, she gets to work on cleaning that shit up. Buries the smokes, finds an empty crate around the back of the cabin to pile the bottles up in. Glass bottles are useful. You can turn them into weapons.

After the outside looks a little more tidy, Grace sits herself down at the picnic table. She tries to take stock of the situation.

They’ve stumbled on what looks like some hunter’s lodge; _Howard Cabin, established 1965_ says a plaque by the door. Grace is pretty familiar with this land, but she’s never heard of it. Not too surprising. Plenty of rich people’s vacation lodges littered around the area. It’s not hard to buy a bit of land in Hope County. John Seed sure didn’t have any trouble with it.

There’s even a fucking flagpole on the roof, tattered remains of a US flag littering the ground nearby. It breaks Grace’s heart, a little. She fought for that flag. Her Pops fought for that flag. It deserves better than a slow disintegration in the mud. She tells herself she’ll clean it up in a minute. For now, she just wants to sit.

Grace is waiting for the truth to catch up to her. She checks her pulse, just to make sure. Sits very still and listens to her own breathing, and the chatter of her teeth as her rain-soaked clothes start sticking to her. The rumble of a stomach on its third day without food. Still alive, though. Still functional.

She doesn’t understand what happened.

She doesn’t remember anything but the light. Blazing white and holy on the hillside-

“Not looking good, is it?”

Grace turns to see Jess standing in the cabin’s doorway, still stripped down to the grey singlet top and underwear she slept in, her boots on her feet, her hair a bird’s nest tangle. Any other time it would be hard not to crack a smile at her appearance. Right now, Grace isn’t sure she knows what a smile feels like.

She turns back to her vigil. “No. Can’t say it is.”

“At least we’re not being hunted yet.”

“Small mercies,” Grace says. She clenches and unclenches her hands on the picnic table, before pushing them down between her thighs in a vain attempt to keep warm. But her pants are as cold as the rest of her, and her hands still tremble. Figures. “But there’s no need for us to get moving just yet, so you might as well go back to bed.”

“Need to piss.”

“You know where to go then.”

“I hate rain,” Jess says. She comes to stand next to Grace, just under the shelter of the porch awning. Squints out at the mist, and the burning valley beyond it. “Think it’ll put out the fires?”

“I hope so.”

“Good,” Jess says savagely. “I don’t want them to catch up to us. Burning’s a shitty way to die.” She steps out into the rain.

For lack of anything else to do, they spend the morning taking stock of the cabin.

It’s not exactly prepper central, but it’s clear someone put a bit of thought into their shopping list; must be a hunting cabin of sorts, though there’s no generator to be found. Still, they have food. Cans of coconut milk, condensed milk, beef and chicken stock. Packs of dehydrated eggs, one precious bucket of powdered cow’s milk. Protein bars; Jess makes a strangled noise and grabs two, tearing them open and dropping plastic wrap on the floor as she crams both into her mouth at once. Grace is only a little more dignified. She makes an effort to pick up the trash, at least, but she also groans around her raisin-walnut-pecan-whatever mouthful. It might be the best thing she’s ever tasted.

She has the presence of mind to slap Jess’ hand away when the other woman starts reaching for a third protein bar.

“Later,” she says as Jess honest-to-god bares her teeth and hisses. “And don’t _do_ that, it’s creepy. Listen to me. You’ll make yourself sick, and it’s not proper food anyway. Help me take inventory and I’ll see if I can throw together a meal. With vegetables.”

“I don’t eat fucking vegetables,” Jess says, but she stops reaching for the bars and stalks off to see if there’s any paper to be found. Grace gets back to digging through cupboards. And when Jess passes her a notepad and stump of a pencil, she starts listing their new worldly possessions.

They’re good for canned meat and dried jerky, at least; looks like the cabin’s previous owner took Jess’ attitude to protein sources. They have full cupboards of canned tuna and salmon, and a small stack of turkey chunks at the back of the pile. Instant coffee and tea, well stocked. A decent amount of canola oil, though they’ll have to cook on open flame outside, or try to use the dusty little collapsible cook stove that probably hasn’t been touched in…too long.

Grace finds a few sealed containers of pasta, and sacks of wheat flour and oats by the cold stove. She breathes a silent sigh of relief. There is only so much jerky one woman can eat, although she’s not sure she wants to know if Jess agrees with her on that.

They’re low on fruit and vegetables, she notes. A couple of packs of dried raisins, apricots, and dates, but those won’t go far. A few cans of peaches, one solitary can of pineapple juice, two of sauerkraut. Plenty of brown sugar and some basic seasonings; salt, red pepper, dried mustard, garlic powder. But no carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and nowhere near as many beans as she might have hoped for. Looks like someone stocked up on their favourites, and only their favourites. Which is nice for them, but Grace likes variety in her diet.

_Slow down,_ she tells herself, counting the seemingly unending cans of beef chunks. _You got through the end of the world and hordes of psychotic Peggies; half the valley’s on fire right now, and there’s sure to be a lot of people in worse shape than you are. Jerome and Mary May and the poor damn Deputy. If they’re still alive. Could be worse for you. World won’t end if you go a few days without eating your greens._

There is a quiet, guilty _crunch_ behind her. Grace turns to find Jess sitting at the other end of the cabin. She has a can of crackers by her side and an open jar of peanut butter balanced on her crossed ankles. She glares, defiant, at Grace’s raised eyebrows.

“I’m not apologising,” she says, shoving another cracker into the jar and smearing peanut butter all over it. “I hate being hungry. You know why?

“Yeah. I heard about your parents.”

“Okay. Good. Didn’t really want to tell the story again, anyway.”

After that, Grace leaves her to it. She writes up her list and soaks a pot of oatmeal in the water she finds in containers by the door. Can’t heat it up without fire, but it’s raining outside. Her clothes are still damp. The shivering stopped once she got moving, once she was lifting cans and shuffling between the cupboards and turning to check that Jess is still leaning on her wall, stuffing herself with crackers. But god, she wants to light a fire. They’re probably safe to do it. Anyone seeing the smoke from a distance will assume it’s running wild, and stay away.

But it’s raining outside and the woodpile will be soaked. There wasn’t any kindling, either. She could go and make some; they have an axe, leaning on the wall by the stove. But it seems like such an impossible effort. Easier to lean her head against the door of the cold iron stove, to close her eyes for a second or two while she thinks. There are so many things she needs to think about. Food and water and wood and heat and first aid and looking around for something they can carry stuff in, just in case they need to run again. She needs to prepare bug-out bags. And…

The rain. Something to do with the rain, only she can’t remember. Something bright and white and holy and mushroom shaped, looming over the horizon.

She can’t remember.

Jess is leaning over her, reaching for the axe, and Grace’s eyes fly open. She fumbles at her hip for her sidearm, but it’s all the way over where she left it, by the bed. Her rifle is next to it. Out of reach.

“It’s fine,” Jess says as Grace lifts her hands in self-defence. “Just going to go cut up some of that wood pile, is all. You go back to sleep.”

“I wasn’t sleeping.”

“You were. For like, half an hour. You looked relaxed, I didn’t want to wake you up. I’ll get the wood.”

Grace blinks sleep from her eyes. She feels clearer, less hazy. She sees Jess’ hand on the front door, hears the rain outside, and says, “Stop.”

Jess does, though she doesn’t look happy about it. “I said I can do this, it’s fine. Have to make myself useful somehow.”

“No,” Grace says. “We can’t go out right now. I remember now, there was…an explosion.”

“We were outside before,” Jess points out.

“I wasn’t thinking.” She is now, though. She’s thinking of the rain, of the heavens opening up over their heads, of what seemed like a sign from god. Safety from the fires. But it’s not the fires they have to be scared of right now. “Jess, those blasts, they looked…you know?”

“Mushroom clouds,” Jess mutters. She takes her hand off the door and looks at it. Scrubs it hard against the thin fabric of her singlet.

Grace is tempted to do the same thing. That, or strip her damp clothes off and throw them away from her. But she doesn’t have anything else to wear. “If there’s radiation in the air, that rain is bringing it right down on us.”

“Depends,” Jess says. “I think, I…wasn’t really paying attention when Uncle Dutch got started on that shit; didn’t seem as useful as some of the other stuff, I mean, what are the chances- yeah. I know, I suck. But I think it depends which way the wind is blowing.”

“Well, I don’t think I’ll be going outside to check.”

Jess gives an impatient sigh. “Grace, come on. Think about it. Which way are the fires moving?”

_I don’t know, okay_? Is Grace’s first response. She bites it down. It’s the exhaustion talking; that, and the hunger, the cold, the fear. She’s been trained for high stress situations. She knows how to analyse the things that might be influencing her responses. She can push those things aside.

_Focus_.

“Away from us,” she says slowly. “We wouldn’t be safe here if they weren’t. And the blast was way up in the hills-”

“There was more than one.”

“Jesus.”

Jess shrugs. She grips the axe; her eyes dart, but her scarred face is expressionless. “Doesn’t matter, does it? We need fire. Gotta dry off, gotta make hot food. As long as we’re not downwind- and we’re _not_ \- then there’s nothing we can do.” With that, she opens the door, and takes her axe out into the rain.

Grace busies herself with exploring. She can’t find first aid gear, and that bothers her; if this is the hunting cabin she thinks it is, where are the bandages, the painkillers, the disinfectant? Why bother with stoves for heating and cooking if you’re not going to keep your wood properly dry? And then there’s the bed itself; mattress, a couple of light blankets. But it can get cold up here in the hills with the trees cutting off the sunlight. So where’s the rest of the bedding?

Maybe most suspicious is the lack of homebrew. She doesn’t think she’s ever heard of a hunter who didn’t have a stash of _something_ floating around for the long evenings. Which suggests that she’s not looking in the right places.

It takes her fifteen minutes to find the hatch under the bed. Grace sits back on her heels, blowing stray hair out of her eyes.

“Huh,” she says. And then, a lot louder, “Jess? _Jess_ , get in here!” This is, in hindsight, a bad idea; Jess comes charging through the door like an enraged grizzly bear, skidding on wet boots, axe held aloft and ready to send heads rolling, and Grace is very thankful that she stayed on her knees by the bed.

“What?” Jess demands. “What is it, is it Peggies?”

Grace gives a sigh. “No,” she says. “I think I found something. Put that thing down and come help me move the bed.”

It’s a hatch, alright; locked, though not for long once Jess comes back with her axe. The hinges aren’t even rusty, and neither is the ladder underneath them. Grace and Jess look at each other.

“I’ll go first,” Jess offers. “You stay up here and make sure we don’t get jumped. Holy shit, I can’t believe we scored a place with its own bunker! I mean, I knew the whole prepper thing was popular around here, but still. Uncle Dutch would be proud.”

She’s a lot less pleased when she sticks her head back up through the hatch to provide an update. Grace looks up from her list-making; tries not to appear too impatient.

“How’s it looking?

“Newbies,” Jess announces in a disgusted tone. “Half-assing this shit. Some rich asshole went to all the trouble of making sure he had a secure concrete cellar, and then what does he do? Gets bored. Leaves it half fucking finished. Come see for yourself. Careful, it’s dark.”

It is dark; although it looks like the wiring has been mostly installed, there is no source of electricity to be found. No generator, no switchboard, no light bulbs, no torches or batteries. Bare shelves and cupboards that Grace feels her careful way through, disappointed. There’s a small, empty room with unpainted walls that she assumes was eventually supposed to be the bathroom. A strong safe with a sturdy lock that hasn’t been closed; inside she finds a few cases of ammo she can’t identify in the dark. Not enough, and the gun itself is missing. All the food seems to have been kept upstairs, but Grace finds a couple of heavy first aid kits that she passes up to Jess with some relief, along with several bottles of expensive-looking vodka. She finds boxes of unused clothing and, ludicrously, a couple of pairs of fleece-lined house slippers.

There’s also a small, unfurnished room with a plastic-wrapped mattress leaning on a wall, and boxed-up blankets sitting next to it.

_Half-assed indeed_ , Grace thinks, tugging at the plastic wrapping. _Who spends all this money, goes to all this trouble and then doesn’t bother to finish the job?_ She wonders where the owner is now. Whether or not they’ll be showing up at the door sometime soon, soaking wet and possibly contaminated. Whether they died in the explosions like so many others.

“We should sleep down there,” she says later. They have a fire to warm the cabin, coaxed to reluctant life around the driest wood Jess could gather. The little collapsible cooking stove has been set up just outside the front door, somewhat protected by the awning. Grace makes stew. Jess sits nearby, dressed in a man’s pants and plaid shirt, both too large for her. She cradles her bow in her lap. The axe sits on the ground at her side. Grace doesn’t comment on either.

“Death trap,” Jess says flatly. “Not enough ventilation down there to close the hatch while we sleep, so we’d have to leave it open. Someone comes in, shuts the hatch on us, we’re fucked. There’s no way out.”

“We could barricade the cabin doors.” Grace stirs her stew. The smell of it is killing her, though it’s mostly meat and ground up crackers. “We’d hear them come in long before they got to us.”

“It’s a stupid risk.”

“It’s a bunker. Concrete’s safer than wood for contamination.”

“We’ve been outside in the open for _two days,_ Grace,” Jess says. “It doesn’t get more exposed than that. We took our tablets. Not much else we can do.”

Perhaps the most exciting find in the first aid kits was the packets of potassium iodide tablets. _Nuke Pills_ , apparently. Grace doesn’t know if they’ll be of any use; during her time in the army, she was never deployed to any location where radiation exposure was a considerable risk, so she has about as much information on it as Jess does. For all she knows, they’re chewing on placebos. But as long as neither of them is sick, she figures there’s no harm in chewing their mandated one placebo a day until they run out, or something else goes wrong.

It’s not a long-term solution, but it doesn’t have to be. At some point, the rescue crews will come. Anything after that can be their headache to deal with.

_We’re doing pretty good_ , she tells herself. _Could be worse. Could be dead. How many people are dead? How many out there need help?_

She shakes the moodiness off long enough to spoon stew into bowls for herself and Jess, and leave the rest in the pot for later. No refrigeration, but it’s stew. As long as she has things to add to it, it’ll keep going a while.

Jess tucks in right away; Grace stops to say a soft prayer before eating. It’s a habit more than anything, as ingrained in her bones as the trigger discipline she’s known for most of her life, or the need to worry about anyone other than herself. She gives thanks for her meal. And then she eats.

“Are you happy to stay here in the valley, then?” she asks when her mouth is empty. “We need a home base.”

Jess shrugs. “Don’t care. The mountains have more cover, but they also have more wolves, and I bet there’s Judges on the loose. Henbane might still have angels all over the fucking place. Peggies are everywhere, no matter where you go, but the worst the valley has is apple trees, fields, and dead people all over the place. Could be worse. Corpses are good fertiliser. And the wind isn’t blowing this way.”

“We can scavenge from the orchards,” Grace says. She picks at her stew; it’s not the best she’s ever made, but she’s hungry enough to eat it however it comes. “Need to get at some of those pumpkins before they go bad. Assuming they’re safe; I don’t know. I’ll think about it. And I know Rae-Rae’s place probably has a bunch of stuff we can use. Plus I think I remember a trout pond just west of here; we won’t starve.”

“Need to start thinking about the winter,” Jess says in a matter-of-fact tone that temporarily stuns Grace to silence.

_Yeah_ , she thinks. _Yeah, I guess. Still, winter’s a few months away, and we’ll all be rescued by then. The national guard’s gonna come and see to those fires, and airlift us all out. They’ll get us settled in a new place. Arrest Joseph Seed, assuming he’s alive. Clean up this mess for us. Won’t be long now._

But because the army taught her to think in advance, to prepare for the worst, Grace digs out a piece of paper and a pencil, and starts making a list for winter.

Grace spends a few days recuperating indoors while the rains continue; Jess ignores her warnings, chops wood and starts stacking it under the awning. She sets up a couple of desultory traps in the forest around their cabin. And every time she comes back inside, Grace makes her wipe herself off with the little towelettes she found packed in the first aid kits with their medication. _Wipe away radioactive contamination,_ they say, and she’s not going argue with that. Jess only tries to weasel out of it once. Something in Grace’s face must give her all the warning she needs; after that, she shuts up and uses the damn towelettes.

Grace cleans the guns. They have three; a handgun apiece for her and Jess, as well as her AR-15. Not enough ammo for any of them. She cooks as well, and tries to move some of their precious provisions down into the cellar for safekeeping. Does more looking around; she wants torches and batteries and _fuck_ does she want a radio. But she’s not getting any of those, so she plays housewife while Jess hacks up wood like the world’s surliest lumberjack.

Gradually, the rain stops. The distant fires are dying down. Jess climbs onto the roof of their cabin and strings a length of bandage up from the bare flagpole. Now they _know_ they’re not downwind.

Cautiously, Grace starts thinking about leaving the cabin.

They start out small. There’s a lookout tower just up the hill from them; ten minutes’ careful walk through the trees and up the gravel path. They take their time about scouting the place out. Grace has her rifle; Jess has her bow, her quiver of arrows sitting on the ground at her side.

The place is deserted. Grace doesn’t know if she should be relieved or disappointed.

She heads up to the second floor and freezes in the doorway.

“Laptop,” she says. “Jess, there’s a laptop here.” Jess is at her side immediately, powering it on.

It’s almost out of battery; five percent left, and plugging the charger into the wall does nothing. There’s no power. And as Grace pulls up the list of available Wi-Fi networks in the area, she’s dismayed to find it empty. That’s not totally surprising; Hope County’s so rural, there’s a lot of places without internet access. Only place she knows with a steady connection is Fall’s End.

But Fall’s End is down south, far closer to the explosion. They can’t go there. Can’t afford the risk.

“Well that was really fucking unhelpful,” Jess says, turning away. She storms off to fiddle with an unresponsive microwave. Grace starts looking around for a radio. There should be one; there’s a bench nearby with maps, diagrams, Peggie documents filled with abbreviations she doesn’t understand, measurements and quantities that probably apply to shipments. Bliss, or weapons. Doesn’t matter now. There’s a clear bit of bench space that she suspects once had a radio sitting on it. Not anymore; whoever was working here, they took the radio when they left. Grace would have done the same thing herself, but still, she curses them silently.

“Not much we can use here,” she comments. Jess gets bored with poking the dead microwave and steps outside to lean on the lookout balcony. Unasked, Grace hands over her rifle. “Don’t shoot anything,” she warns. “Can’t afford to draw attention.”

“Yes _ma’am_.”

“And don’t be cheeky.”

There are a couple of bunk beds that look pretty comfortable, but that won’t do them much good; the lookout is far too exposed, and too obvious. They’d have to make sure someone was on watch duty every second of the day and night. With just the two of them, it’s just not possible.

There is, however, a massive container of toilet paper. And, down on the ground floor, an actual working toilet. Looks like the plumbing is still reliable, then. Grace isn’t about to go around drinking any water that doesn’t come from their sealed stocks, but she figures it can’t do her much harm if she’s flushing it away. She wonders if it’s a stupid risk to take, walking the ten minutes up here to avoid their little outhouse.

Scratch that. She knows it’s stupid; but it might just help keep her a little saner.

She takes the large torch she finds back upstairs. Never know when that’ll come in handy, and their cabin doesn’t have one of its own. And then she joins Jess at the balcony.

“How’s it looking?”

Jess doesn’t take her eye off the scope of Grace’s rifle. “You want the kinda good news, the bad news, or the worse news?”

“I’ll…start with the kinda good news, I guess.”

“Fires are pretty much out.”

“Okay,” Grace says. “That really is good news. There might actually be something left of this county to rescue. Alright, hit me. What’s the bad and worse news?”

“Bad news: not a lot of movement out there,” Jess says. “Wildlife’s lying low. Nobody on the roads, and I can’t see any movement down in the nearby orchards. None of the farmers or local families.”

“Maybe they got out in time.”

“Worse news: ‘not a lot of movement’ doesn’t mean ‘no movement’. We got Peggies wandering about.”

“Shit. You sure about that?”

“I can see their stupid clothes,” Jess tells her. “With their stupid logo, and their _stupid_ beards and whatever. Trust me, I know a Peggie when I see one. I’ve killed a lot. God, I want to kill these ones too. But I guess that would just bring them all down on us.”

Gently, Grace pries her rifle out of Jess’ reluctant hands. Checks the safety is still on. “As long as they’re not on our patch, I’m thinking we leave them alone. I don’t want to snipe a straggler, only to find out he’s part of a gang. Come on. Let’s go home.”

She brings the torch back to the cabin, setting it down on one of the small kitchen benches. And it makes no sense, but that one small bit of success just highlights how inadequate their other stocks are. There are things they need. Things they can’t survive without. And if the lookout can’t supply those things, then she and Jess are going to have to go a little further.

“We need to scavenge,” she tells a hostile Jess. “I know, I know. Trust me, I’m not comfortable about this either. But we can’t eat our way through all the food, just in case we…just in case. Rae-Rae’s place can’t be more than a mile away, and it didn’t get hit by the fires.”

“Yeah,” Jess says. “That just makes it more likely that someone else already moved in. There are a lot of Peggies out there, Grace. You even saw, while we were still running.”

“I told you, I don’t remember.”

“Well, I do. Joseph’s not dead, and neither are a lot of his brain-fucked slaves. They’re out there. And if you want us to go down in a hail of bullets, I’m good with that. But I kind of got the impression that you wanted to live.”

“I do,” Grace insists. “That’s why we need to get to Rae-Rae’s.” She tries not to focus too hard on the _Joseph’s not dead_. God help them all if it’s true; the man’s like a cockroach. Word on the street is the Deputy took out all three of his vile siblings, and not a tear will be shed over them. But it’s not enough. As long as the so-called Father walks free, they’ll never get peace.

_Focus_ , she tells herself. _One target at a time. Get to Rae-Rae’s, take what you need. Stay sheltered, wait for rescue, then you tell law enforcement all about Father Joseph, and you trust in the justice system. It’s not going to let you down._

They wrap their heads and faces up in scarves, covering everything but their eyes. Grace wants goggles, or even sunglasses, but she’s always been good at understanding that the things she wants aren’t going to come easy. Jess refuses to glove up her hands, claiming it’ll throw off her bow skills. Grace fights her on this, and loses. She hates how much it scares her to see Jess leave the cabin bare-handed.

All is quiet down at Rae-Rae’s farm. The ash and smell of smoke hasn’t come this way, and the trees brim with unpicked apples. Peering down at the farm through the scope on her rifle, Grace can see the pumpkin patches. They haven’t all been picked over. She thinks she’d kill for just one to take back with her. Anything that isn’t canned meat and crackers.

There’s no sign of Boomer. That hurts more than she expected.

“Looks quiet,” she says to Jess, who blends into the tree line like one more shadow, and sits as still as Grace herself. “Remember the plan. One person into a building, one outside on watch. We don’t stay any longer than half an hour.”

“Remember the plan, she says; I _made_ the fucking plan.”

“Just saying. Don’t forget the list. The essentials. And the most important thing, which is-”

“Tampons,” Jess says, deadpan.

Grace cracks a smile. It’s the first she’s managed since the end of the world. Momentous occasion indeed. “I was going to say ‘radio’, but…yeah. No arguments here. And if you see any chocolate, I get some pretty bad cravings. Just so you know.”

“I get cramps; gonna need more painkillers,” Jess mutters, and stands from her crouch, moving towards the farm. Grace tracks her progress, scans the area through her rifle scope. She’s never been a nervous person, but her insides pick now to start knotting themselves up. It’s worse once Jess is gone from view. All she can do is wait.

It’s so quiet. The trees, the fields, the hills. The land is in shock; sooner or later, the tears will come, and the shakes and the panicking. But not now. Now is like the long, frozen moment after a bullet tears through your body, or a mine explodes your friend. The silence before the pain hits. It hasn’t registered yet, but it’s coming. Oh god, is it coming. She just hopes they’ll be ready for it.

Jess emerges from the main farmhouse, a bulging sheet tied up and slung over her shoulder. She moves quickly, glancing behind her, darting through shadow like a she-wolf at dusk. Barely visible. Grace almost jumps as she reappears from seemingly nowhere.

“Got some stuff,” Jess announces, setting the bag down. “Got a radio and batteries; don’t know if it works, I didn’t test it. Phone lines are down. TV can’t get signal. Got us some clothes that might actually fit, and I took all the ammo I could find. Bunch of stuff from the kitchen that we don’t have, honey and hot sauce and all the chocolate I could find. Hope it’s what you wanted, I’m bad at this scavenging shit.”

“Any tampons?” Grace asks with a little smile.

Jess actually smiles back; it doesn’t last, but it’s nice while it does. A right little ray of sunshine underneath all the scars. “All of them. But I bet we run out way too fast.”

“Always do. Your turn on watch.”

Grace leaves her rifle on the ground next to Jess, checks her handgun is loaded, and makes her way down the hill to what used to be Rae-Rae’s farm.

The ground is dark and rain-wet, but Grace still remembers joining the volunteer cleanup crew after John Seed and his people murdered everyone on the farmstead. She remembers hosing blood from the grass; taking her turn at the gravedigging, ducking into Rae-Rae’s comfortable little home to find sheets to wrap the bodies in. Not that long ago. Can’t be more than a month. Time’s gone so fast, and she has no clue where it’s all running off to.

She breaks into the sheds.

Inside, she finds what she was looking for, all tidily laid out in little sealed bags: seeds. Pumpkins, lentils, sugar beets, wheat, carrots and corn and kale and blessed goddamn broccoli. Wonderful Rae-Rae even has some potatoes in a sack, which Grace helps herself to, giving silent thanks to the dead woman. A bucket with gardening gloves, a trowel, a sickle. A few sealed bags of compost. She drops her treasure trove into her own knotted sheet-bag, and slings it over her shoulder where her rifle normally sits. It’s heavy. She’s glad of the weight.

Outside the sheds, Grace stops to look across the fields. Apples in the trees, pumpkins in the earth. Ready for picking. But she knows she’s heard warnings about radiation, about contamination in the topsoil, just like she knows instinctively that the scarf wrapped around her face, the gloves on her hands, and her insistence that she and Jess remove their muddy boots before entering the cabin, won’t do shit to protect her if she consumes tainted vegetables. She’ll have to settle for the seeds. They’ve been in the shed, which was closed up tight; they’re as safe as anything, right now.

From behind the sheds, Grace hears a sound. She freezes. With the hand that isn’t gripping her bag, she reaches for her gun. Starts inching her way around the building.

_Where’s Jess?_ Her hands are suddenly damp with sweat, and that’s not normal for her. She glances up at the tree line. It’s still. Everything is still. Still and quiet, except that there’s definitely sound coming from behind that shed.

Grace steps around the corner.

She sees the hutches and chicken wire, the poultry milling about within, and sags with relief.

“Huh,” she says. “Gave me quite a fright there-”

“Drop the bag and the gun!” someone screams behind her, and Grace thinks her heart might stop. She obeys immediately; anyone using that tone, that volume, in this situation- they’re not messing around. She starts to turn.

“Hands in the fucking air, and don’t you move, or I swear to the Father I will send you straight down to hell.”

_Shit,_ Grace thinks. _Shit, shit, that’s not good. That is not ideal at all_. She swallows, trying to get some moisture up in her mouth.

“Hi,” she says quietly. “It’s okay, I got my hands up like you said. Bag’s on the ground. I didn’t realise this place was occupied. Didn’t mean to trespass.” From the voice, she’s dealing with a guy; he’s close enough behind her that she can smell his sweat on the air. Is he alone? Does he know where Joseph is?

“The Father promised,” says the man at her back. “Everything’s happening like he said it would, except I was- I was too slow, I couldn’t get into the bunkers. They closed without me. My sin was too strong, and it has locked me out of the gates of Heaven.”

Grace doesn’t say anything. And then she feels something solid press between her shoulders.

“Did you start the fires?” the man asks her. His voice shakes; grief or fear or rage, Grace can’t tell. It scares her either way. It’s not stable. “You sinners, were you the ones that wanted Eden’s garden burnt to ash?”

“No,” she’s forced to say as the gun starts digging hard into her spine. “I didn’t want nothing to do with it. Just wanted to be left alone to live my life. I didn’t start any of this.”

“Father Joseph said you’d burn the world. That your unrepentant sins would consume us, just like you wanted.”

“No, I- I don’t want this, nobody would ever want this-”

There is a soft, strangled sound from behind her. Grace hits the ground immediately, smearing mud all over herself, rolling away from her attacker and bringing her gun up to target him. She’s too late; he lies in the dirt like Rae-Rae did, bleeding out fast. There are two arrows through his throat.

“Sorry,” Jess says, materialising from the other side of the sheds. “Had to reposition to get a clean shot. Good job keeping him talking.” She spits cheerfully on the body. “Fucker. Deserved what he got.”

_Stupid kid_ , Grace thinks, looking closer at her attacker. And he is barely more than a kid; under the cult clothes and wispy beard and ragged tats she recognises as John’s handiwork ( _LUST_ on his chest like it’s some big confession) he is far younger than she’d expected. Can’t be much over eighteen. Probably lost, angry at the world. It’s just a shame no one else managed to help the poor guy before Joseph sniffed out his weakness.

Grace says a silent prayer for him. Not much to it; _God, let this misguided soul find some peace, amen._ She’s always struggled to pray for Peggies. But she makes herself do it anyway.

Finished, Grace tears her eyes away from the dead man. She picks up her bag of loot, her precious seeds and potatoes, her gardening gear. Holsters her gun carefully. “Nice shooting as always, Jess. Appreciate it.” Jess shrugs the praise off like she always does, but she can’t hide that it makes her eyes shine. She nudges the body with one boot.

“You want a chicken?”

“What?” Grace glances at the pen and the animals milling around within. “No! You know they’re probably sick, right?”

“Well, yeah,” Jess says. “That’s how we’ll know if we’re fucked. If the birds start dying on us.” Turning on her heel, she heads back into the house. Her bow and arrows sway on one shoulder; Grace’s rifle takes the other, along with the white bag of provisions. It’s a lot for one small woman to carry. She makes it look effortless.

Jess comes back with some string and some men’s ties. Between then, she and Grace trap a couple of chickens. They truss the legs and blindfold the poor, frightened birds. And then they head back to their cabin.

They try the radio first; Jess fiddles with dials, her ear right up against the speaker as Grace unloads the rest of their haul. There’s no need to say anything. They both hear the never-ending static hiss. If anyone’s broadcasting, they can’t pick it up.

Oddly enough, that’s not what shatters Grace. She soldiers through the disappointment like she does everything else, methodically lining up her little sacks of scavenged seeds and compost, her gardening tools. And then she reaches into Jess’ bag and discovers why it was so damn heavy.

Pumpkins. Three of them, and a half-dozen apples wrapped in a dish towel.  A whole bunch of wizened carrots tied up in the same string they used on the chickens, several onions and some slightly bruised tomatoes.

“Got you your fucking veggies,” Jess says without taking her ear away from the radio. Her hands move restlessly over the dials, and she won’t meet Grace’s eyes. “I know the ones in the fields aren’t safe, but those were in Rae-Rae’s pantry. So they’re better. Sorry they’re kind of old.”

 Gently, Grace lifts the tomatoes out. Still attached to their little bit of vine; she cups them in her hands like rubies. “Probably been there since before she died. Must have been her last trip to the markets.”

“Don’t know. I just thought you’d like them.”

Grace puts the tomatoes down. “Excuse me,” she says, and flees the cabin.

The chickens cluck at her from their little crate as she passes, but Grace ignores them. She makes her way down to the hillside overlook, where the orchards and fields and valley stretch endlessly out in front of her. The horizon is only slightly hazy; the fires have died down to ash.

Grace cries.

She doesn’t know how long she spends there, leaning on the little wooden fence while the tears pour and her chest starts to ache from sobbing. She doesn’t know when Jess comes looking for her. Just that one moment she’s not there, and the next she is, standing awkwardly at Grace’s shoulder, her hands clenched at her side.

After a moment, Jess reaches out and gives Grace’s shoulder a rough pat. “See,” she says. “This is why I don’t eat vegetables.” Which starts off another bout of tears, except that this time Grace is laughing at the same time. Thoughtless, she pulls Jess into a clumsy hug. Jess allows it. Her hands come up to rest on Grace’s back. It helps. Maybe it helps them both.

Later, they huddle by their cook stove, eating their bowls of stew. Beef chunks and crackers and _carrots_ and _onions_ , and Grace is actually proud of this one. She can’t help but notice that Jess eats the whole thing. Vegetables and all.

“I’m surprised I didn’t crack sooner,” Grace says. “I mean, yeah, I’ve been in stressful situations before. Plenty of them in Afghanistan. But this? Nobody’s ready for this. Feels like my brain’s still trying to catch up, you know? There’s a whole bunch of shit I just don’t remember.”

Jess doesn’t look up from where she’s cleaning her empty bowl with a fingertip, licking it clean of any extra stew she can find. That girl’s always hungry. Skin and bone, but she eats like a starving bear. “Lucky,” she says. “Wish I had that problem.”

Grace warms her hands on the heat of the cook stove. “Most of what I remember is the halo of light on the hill. Like the clouds parted and God was descending on us; yeah, I know, that’s not what it was. But that was my first thought. _Holy shit, Joseph was right_. And then…not much. Honestly, I’m surprised I didn’t go blind.”

“Uh, no,” Jess says. “Because you weren’t looking at most of it? I tackled you, made sure we were both face first in the dirt. You don’t fucking stare at bright lights, they incapacitate you. Make you vulnerable. I can’t believe you didn’t know that.”

“I do,” Grace insists. “I did, I…I do. But for some reason, that was different. I thought I was seeing _God_.”

“Didn’t realise God was mushroom-shaped,” Jess says. “Shows how much attention I paid in Sunday school.”

“Jokes aside. What…happened? I remember the light, and afterwards I remembered the clouds. And then there’s just nothing, until we hit Holland Valley and I realised we needed shelter. It’s like my brain got scraped clean. Like it was someone else in my body.”

Jess shrugs. “You seemed fine to me. Kind of quiet, kind of blank, but I figured that was your survival mode. And you weren’t holding me back, so it didn’t matter. All we did was run. And drive; we were at that Peggie compound, Joseph was monologuing like the narcissistic fuckwad he is. Then the explosions started and it was basically every woman for herself. I grabbed one of their cars. Good of them to leave the keys in the ignition. Headed for the hills, away from the first blast zone, at least until the second one happened and I realised we needed to get off the roads. So…we ran. That’s pretty much it. I think there were three of them all up, but I didn’t see the other two; just felt the ground shaking when they detonated. They weren’t in the direction we were running, and that was all I cared about.”

“Shit,” Grace murmurs. She reaches for the bottle of vodka at her side. They’re careful with it; might need it for injuries some day, can’t afford to drink it all like water. But still, it’s a morale-booster. A sip or two in the evenings won’t hurt. “So Joseph’s still around.”

“Last I saw.”

“What about the others?” Grace pushes. “I saw Jerome, Hurk and Sharky and Adelaide and Nick…and the Deputy. Whole lot of other people.”

Jess accepts the bottle of vodka from her, taking a sip. She looks…tired. “I don’t know, Grace. I was standing next to you, and I knew you’d be able to keep up with me. Never stopped for anyone else. If I had, we’d be dead too.”

“I know,” Grace says gently. “I’m not blaming you. You saved my life.”

“Yeah.” Jess sips vodka. She stares down at her hands, at the scars and calluses that mark her. “Wonder if Nick Rye made it out. You know his wife just had a baby?”

“Sure.”

“Probably all dead now, anyway.”

There is nothing Grace can say to that. It effectively shuts down conversation for the evening; they go to bed soon after.

There is, of all things, a full length mirror down in the bunker. It was left to lean on the half-built bedroom wall, useless in the darkness. Grace carried it up to the main cabin on their second day there, with Jess’ uncomprehending assistance.

Every morning, she strips her clothes off and stands in front of the mirror. Stands as close as she can get, and starts checking herself over, head to toes. Checks on her larger moles, checks for any new bruises, for cuts or scrapes she might need to cover to keep infection out. Maybe the worst part is that she doesn’t know what she’s looking _for_ ; she doesn’t remember what the signs of radiation sickness are, if she ever even knew them. She does know that moles changing shape and random bruises appearing can mean cancer. But surely it’s too early for that. There must be other signs.

She’s looking for symptoms she probably wouldn’t recognise, even if she saw them. Still, she looks anyway. It makes her feel a little better. It gives her another routine in the quiet mornings before Jess comes staggering up the ladder from their bunker bed. Generally around the time Grace puts the coffee on.

And then one morning, she looks into the mirror and finds Jess behind her, staring.

“Morning,” Grace says briskly, and tilts her head to check on the mole under her left ear. She works fast; the mornings are getting cold, and the stove hasn’t quite warmed up yet. The sooner she can get her clothes back on, the better.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Jess asks. She sounds faintly stunned.

Grace glances over her shoulder at the other woman; her eyes are slightly wilder than usual. “Check up,” Grace tells her briskly. “Making sure everything still looks normal, and I’m not sick. You should do the same. I’ll leave the mirror up when I’m done, if you want to.”

“I,” Jess starts. She actually hesitates. Swallows visibly. “I think it’s other stuff that comes first. Headaches, nausea and vomiting and shit. Literally. Uh. I think those are the first signs.”

“Thought you weren’t paying attention when Uncle Dutch started talking about the nuclear apocalypse?” Grace turns in the mirror, twisting to check her back. She catches sight of Jess’ reflection, staring at her with very wide eyes. Can’t be the first naked woman she’s ever seen; but then again, this is _Jess_ , so maybe it is. Grace doesn’t mind.

“I’m just…saying what I think,” Jess says. There is a definite stammer in her voice.

Grace hides a smile. And she doesn’t show off or anything, because she’s not a teenager anymore, but maybe she does turn a few more times than necessary. Tells herself it pays to be extra careful. Pretends she doesn’t see the look on Jess’ face.

It’s stupid, and playful, and totally harmless, but it makes her a bit happier. She kind of likes knowing there’s someone out there who still wants to look at her. And Jess is real pretty under the scars and the stubbornness. It’s nice to be wanted by someone pretty.

Jess vanishes back down into the bunker when Grace finally reaches for her clothes. Her cheeks were pretty scarlet by then; Grace figures it’s not worth pointing out. The woman is so easily spooked. Jumpy as a wild dog, snapping at things that get too close to her. She doesn’t show her face until long after Grace is done with the usual morning sponge bath; even then, it’s half a day before she says anything.

The next morning, Grace catches her reflection in the mirror, watching with wide eyes.

“Come on,” she says with a smile. “There’s room here for both, if you want to do your own checks.” Wordless, Jess shakes her head. She stays until Grace is finished. And a few days later, she takes the mirror when Grace is done, tossing her clothes onto the floor and then ruining the feigned carelessness by checking over her shoulder to see if Grace is looking.

And Grace is looking. She’s human; she knows what she’s into.

They make it a routine after that.

As days pass and the expected rescue doesn’t materialise, Grace starts seriously planning for winter. She drags an irritable Jess back down to Rae-Rae’s farm, stealing chicken wire, shovels, a couple of tarps and more compost. Checking the TV and phone lines again, though neither of them function. They have no further run-ins with Peggies; Jess is openly disappointed. But when they get back to the cabin, she sets about building the chickens a proper home, unasked, and Grace gets digging.

She’s careful with the topsoil, scraping off what seems to her like a sizeable layer and dumping it onto one of the tarps from Rae-Rae’s place. Hard to say if she’s taken enough; all she knows is that she needs to get rid of it, that any radioactive fallout the rain might have brought down on them will have settled into the earth. And she’s not taking any chances. She marks off a large area around the side of the cabin and digs it all over. Mixes compost in with the earth she leaves behind. It’s the best she can do.

“Shit,” Grace says when the ground is ready. She’s leaning on her shovel, sweat dripping down her shirt. She lifts a hand to show Jess. “Would you look at that? Blisters, even with the gloves on. Thought my skin was thicker than that.”

Jess has the chickens pecking at a bunch of feed they rustled up from one of Rae-Rae’s sheds. She’s been sitting next to them for an hour now, just watching as they eat. The proper pen seems a welcome change. Has to be better than the boxes they were keeping those poor chickens in up until now.

“They look good,” Jess says absently, and Grace realises she hasn’t really been listening. Off in her own little world; that’s nice for her. Hopefully it’s better than the real one.

“Yeah, they do.”

“No, I mean, like, really good,” Jess looks up. “They’re not losing lots of feathers, they’re not sick. They should be by now, right? Maybe we’re fine.”

“Could be,” Grace agrees. “Like you said; wind wasn’t blowing our way.”

“I check them every day. They’re fine.”

“Could be,” Grace says again. “But that still doesn’t mean you can eat the eggs just yet. We talked about this.” Jess likes eggs, it turns out. Almost as much as she likes meat, and while they still have enough stocks of canned beef to last them well through the winter, the eggs are a different story. They’ve almost finished the dehydrated egg powder; Jess likes eating omelettes, and Grace likes making them for her. But that’s still not a good enough reason to take the risk.

Jess kicks at the dirt. “Couldn’t find Rae-Rae’s rooster,” she says. “Maybe John killed him too when he killed everyone else. But I could head out to one of the other farms and get one. Then we’ll have baby chickens, and when they grow up their eggs might be safe to eat.”

“That’s a nice long-term plan you got there,” Grace says with a laugh. She turns away, idly pushing at the soil with her shovel. Trying not to think too closely about the kind of timelines Jess is working with. Which is pretty hypocritical of her; the garden she’s planting isn’t going to start feeding them in the space of a couple of days. They’re working on a scale of months, maybe a year or more.

_Good_ , Grace thinks. _When the rescue comes, we can show them that us small-town Montana folk can look after ourselves. Bomb our county, we’ll build gardens. We’ll breed the radiation out of our chickens, and feed ourselves through winter. No need to worry about us; just you go and fetch that fucker Joseph Seed. Give him a taste of the hell he put us through._

The next day finds her ready to plant. Grace sits her seed bags by the side of the cabin, slipping on leather gardening gloves. She starts digging little trenches in the earth. Jess comes out to watch, if not to help.

Planting today, Grace has decided. And tomorrow, it’ll be time to strike out west towards the trout pond. Water is going to be a pressing issue if they leave it too late, both for themselves and for the garden. She wants to make a couple of recon trips to see how the fish are doing. If they’re looking healthy. If the deer are still drinking from the pond. And if not, then she’s going to have to start thinking really hard about other water sources, and those will take longer to get to.

But that’s a problem for another day. For now, she has a garden to make.

“Hey Jess, pass me the lentil seeds?” There’s no response. Grace looks up to find Jess standing by the seed bags, staring at her.

“Don’t call them that,” she says.

Grace blinks at her, thrown off by her tone. “What?”

“That thing you just called them. Don’t.” Jess nods at the bags, and Grace understands.

Slowly, she dusts soil from her gloves, trying to think. “Okay,” she says mildly. “Sure, I see what you mean. I get you. But that’s…what they’re called.”

“I don’t give a _shit_ ,” Jess says in a voice that cracks partway. Her eyes are too wide; they dart like little midges. There is no colour in her face. The change is a sudden one, and all the more startling for how fast it comes over her. Like the flick of a switch. Suddenly, she’s not okay. “I don’t like it. I don’t want to hear it. I never want to hear that word, ever again, and especially not from you. Don’t call them that.”

There is very little point in arguing with someone in Jess’ current state of mind; Grace knows this. Just like she knows that this is thin ice that neither of them can afford to put cracks in. She’s not picking a fight here. This is not her hill to die on.

“Yeah, I hear you,” she says. “It’s not a big thing, we can use another word. Wish I could remember my Spanish, but it’s been years, and I got nothing else. What do you want to call them?”

“Anything,” Jess snaps. “Plant…babies, or potential plants, or fucking plant foetuses, anything.”

Creativity, Grace reflects, is clearly not Jess’ strong suit. But given that it’s not exactly hers either, she doesn’t have room to judge. “If those are my options, I guess I’ll go with the second one. Pass me the…potential plants, will you?”

Jess gives her a brittle smile. She hefts a bag on one shoulder and carries it over, careful not to spill. “Here,” she says. “Got that delivery you were wanting, ma’am. One bag of plant foetuses, coming right up.”

“Thanks,” Grace says wryly. She expects Jess to put the bag down and back off; she’s a finicky one around greenery, and she’s said several times that she hates the feel of soil under her fingernails. Blood is fine, apparently, but plain old earth makes her itchy. Strange woman.

Instead of leaving, Jess stands at her shoulder, watching as Grace scoops up…potential plants and starts lining them up like soldiers in the little earthen trenches she’s dug for them.

“Grace?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you think I’m crazy?”

And isn’t that the million dollar question. Grace doesn’t let her hands falter on their planting; she knows Jess has an eagle eye, that she jumps on weakness like it’s magnetised and she’s made of metal. _Steady_ she tells herself, and pretends there’s a rifle under her cheek, a target in her sights. _Steady, Grace. Don’t you twitch, now._

“I think you’re hurt,” she says carefully. “I think we were all hurt, but your hurt was more personal than most. I think you’re handling it as best as you can, doing what you have to so you can live with it. And I think most people wouldn’t have survived what you did. That’s what I think. But I’m no psychiatrist, so you better take all that with a grain of salt. I have my own brand of crazy to watch out for.”

There is silence, for a while. Grace doesn’t count the seconds.

“I like your crazy,” Jess says quietly.

“Thanks.”

“Do we have any spare gloves?”

“Over there in the bucket.” Grace watches as Jess goes to look for the gloves, soundless as she walks. She finds them, returning to crouch at Grace’s side. Even there, she’s on constant alert, glancing around them and over her shoulder, watching their backs. Mostly, though, she watches Grace. It’s a little unnerving. But there are worse things than unnerving.

Grace shows her how to plant, how to space things out and cover them in soil. Eventually Jess joins in, though she does it with a disgusted look, like a cat being nudged out of the house into rain. Still, she helps. And the planting is done that much faster.

That night is the coldest so far. They’re heading into the tail end of fall, and the cabin isn’t well insulated. They light the stove for heat every evening; Jess’ wood pile never stays full for long. But at least they have plenty of tea, and a spoonful of honey apiece as they sit on blankets by the stove and talk. They have a map of the county spread out between them, taken from the lookout. Together, they look for water sources.

“Trout pond tomorrow,” Grace says. “I want to take the empty five gallon container, just in case.”

“The water’s still,” Jess points out. “Need to boil it before drinking. And if it’s not moving, there might be stuff in it. Fallout stuff. I don’t know.”

“Could say the same for the rivers. The water’s moving, but where’s it coming from? If the cabin didn’t get hit, then the pond out west shouldn’t have either.”

“Maybe. Not sure.”

“Story of my life,” Grace says with a sigh. Again, she checks on her fingernails; despite her best efforts, she found dirt under them earlier, and had to clean it out. She’s still not sure it’s all gone.

If the lake is safe, they might be able to wash in a way that doesn’t involve sponges and careful water rationing; Grace would settle for being able to clean her hair properly. Hell, they might be able to do laundry. Their stocks of borrowed clothes are running low. And there are worse things in the world than dirty clothes, but it makes such a difference; she’s sick of putting her feet into gritty socks. A clean bra would be life changing at this point. Not to mention fresh underwear; at this rate, she’ll be going commando by the end of the week.

“West tomorrow,” Jess says abruptly. “And if that’s okay, maybe we could try north-east at some point. Uncle Dutch’s bunker isn’t far. Could walk it in half a day if we’re fast. Be back here before sunset.”

Grace considers this carefully. It’s a risk; the mulish look on Jess’ face says that she knows this, and she doesn’t need reminding. So far they haven’t wandered any further than the pumpkin farm.

There are Peggies out in the fields; they’ve seen them in the distance through the scope of Grace’s rifle. Not too many, so far, and not too often. But that’s just the ones around here. And if they’re anything like the one that jumped Grace, they’re a lot more desperate than they used to be. Probably short on rations. Probably sick. Probably happy to attack a couple of women alone, which will be on their heads if they do, because Grace is all out of mercy and Jess never had any in the first place. Still, it’s dangerous. They can’t afford to attract attention.

“He’s on an island, Jess,” she says, pointing it out on the map. “Need to cross…what, two bridges to get there? Because we’re sure as hell not swimming, and I don’t want to rely on finding a boat.”

“Yeah. I know. Bad idea.”

Grace sighs. She traces the route with a fingertip; it doesn’t look any better, however many times she does it.

This is land she knows well. Was born here, raised here, trained for her Olympic medal here. Left for the army and came back here, because here is home. And once upon a time, the trip Jess is proposing wouldn’t have taken any longer than an hour. They’d have just taken Grace’s beaten up old car, and stopped by one of the orchards to buy some jam or chutney for a gift.

Now the very thought of wandering beyond the line of the apple orchards strikes terror into her. She fears Peggies and rabid wild animals with contamination in their teeth; she fears a killer she can’t see, lurking in the rivers and the earth and the air she breathes.

Her mouth is suddenly very dry. She drinks her tea. Something occurs to her. “Does your uncle have a Geiger counter?”

“Yup,” Jess says immediately. “He was crazy into the whole prepper thing. My parents thought he was nuts; shows how much they know. But he had plans for all kinds of fucked up shit. Nuclear war and pandemics and massive natural disasters. Sure he has a Geiger counter. Probably more than one.”

“Maybe a working radio, too,” Grace mutters. Again, she looks at the map. Looks at the distances that once meant so little to her, and now seem like oceans between continents.

“We could do scouting runs first,” Jess says tentatively. That’s unlike her, but she’s not used to asking other people for stuff. She knows she can’t afford to take this trip alone. That’s their first, unbreakable rule: stay together. Alone, they don’t have a chance. But Jess is clearly on edge; now that the idea has struck her, she wants to see her uncle. That’s not surprising. If Grace had any family left in the area, she’d be wanting to see them too.

“I’ll think about it,” she says.

Grace runs her finger down the roads again. And then starts taking detours, finding other routes. She follows them until they end.

_We have a map,_ she thinks. _If we wanted, we could walk right off the edge of it._

“You know, we could leave Hope County,” Grace says. “Go and get help ourselves. I’m sure the rest of the country is fine.”

“So how come we haven’t seen any emergency crew?” Jess counters. “If they’re fine, where’s the fucking national guard, where are the…the doctors, the first responders? Maybe they could ignore Joseph and his cult, so long as he kept to himself and didn’t kill anyone other than the locals, but this? Fucking bombs, or missiles, or nuclear whatever? How come the rest of the country’s just letting it slide? Only reason I can think of is they’re in it just as bad as we are. Maybe worse.”

She may be right. It’s not something Grace has put much thought into yet; at some point, she knows she’ll have to. Have to sit herself down and really think about the reasons they’ve been abandoned. Think about the silence.

The silence is the worst part, and isn’t that just ironic? She’s always liked a bit of peace and quiet. Silence is the sniper’s friend, but even before joining the army, Grace was never a chatty one. Too much noise makes her antsy. Only now, stuck out in the wilderness with the birds and the deer and just one woman for company, the silence is starting to gnaw at her. If she could just get a radio working. If they could find a house with a functional TV. A laptop. Anything.

“There might be settlements,” she says. “People are resilient, they don’t give up easy; just look at us. We didn’t just keel over and die. Other people won’t either. And if we can find a well-armed group, we might be safer.”

Jess is shaking her head before Grace finishes talking. “No people,” she says. “People are the enemy. They’re good to you as long as they want something, but when you stop being useful? You’re dead. People are selfish. They take what they want and then they set you on fire and leave you to burn.”

“Jess, not everyone-”

“And worse than that,” Jess says loudly, drowning Grace out. “What if it’s like the movies say, huh? What if we’re nice and safe in our little valley of freaks, and the rest of the country’s gone full fucking zombie apocalypse? I mean, I can shoot down zombies, I got no problems with that. But eventually I’m gonna run out of ammo, and I don’t think the zombies will run out of…zombie. Shit. It’s just a bad idea. We’re good here, we got what we need, and we can scavenge the rest. Why would we leave?”

_For answers_ , Grace thinks. _To offer help. For the innocent people who have never done anything more dangerous than drive to work. For the families who could use protectors, and the farms who can’t plant enough because they don’t have the workers. For everyone in the country who never wanted or needed a gun before, and now what? Are they fodder for people with weapons? That’s not right. Can the army protect them all?_

It’s a scarily easy mindset to slip into, the acceptance that the world has really ended. They have no solid proof. Just the silence, and there must be reasons for it. Reasons that don’t involve nuclear disaster all over the place.

Could it be as simple as nobody noticing? _Yeah, sure_ , Grace says to herself. _You keep dreaming, girl, see where it gets you._ There’s no way nobody noticed.

Maybe they just didn’t want to notice. Maybe it’s all been covered up to prevent a worse disaster. But even that doesn’t explain the lack of outside interference; no scientists to measure radiation levels, no military to cordon off the exits, no black vans to cart away survivors, no media helicopters buzzing in the sky.

Only the silence.

For a moment, Grace considers marching outside and screaming her lungs out. It’s a frightening urge, gone as soon as it rears its head. But the fact that it showed up at all is not a good sign.

She breathes, slow and repetitive, until she’s sure she has herself controlled.

“Yeah,” she says at last. “Maybe you’re right. Not sure I want to leave just yet anyway; my Pops is buried in these parts. God knows what those Peggies would do to his grave if I’m not around. They already tried once.” She doesn’t mention the fact that the grave is miles away, and may never again be safe to visit. Jess is already nodding.

“We stay,” she says in a tone that suggests she’s done arguing. “Good. Maybe it’s too soon to check for Uncle Dutch anyways; if there’s radiation, he’d want us staying put.” She turns her back and reaches for the little pile of wood, feeding it into the stove. The conversation is over.

They head out for the lake early, just as the sun is starting to light up the valley. It’s a walk through forest and hills, but the lake itself is right next to a main road. That would make it risky, normally. But right now there’s no movement whatsoever.

They approach the lake quietly. Grace holds up a hand as they see it through the tree line; she lifts her rifle, sighting down the scope.

“Deer,” Jess whispers in her ear. “See them? On the other bank.”

“I see them.”

“They’re drinking the water. They look fine.”

“I heard there are still animals living near Chernobyl, too. Doesn’t make it safe for humans.”

“Grace,” Jess says. “I swear to fuck, if you don’t cut this paranoid bullshit, I will dive bomb right into that lake. We’re not near the blast zones. The wind didn’t turn this way. There’s trees and hill all over the fucking place, it doesn’t get more sheltered than here.”

She is almost as good as her word; doesn’t quite dive bomb the lake, but Grace turns away for a few seconds to set down their empty water container and the wrapped up laundry she brought with her, and turns back to find Jess submerged up to her chin. Her clothes lie abandoned on the bank nearby. She has her eyes closed.

“Water,” she says. “Clean. So good.”

“So fucking _dangerous_ ,” Grace snaps at her. Not that there’s any point; it’s too late now, and Jess doesn’t seem to care anyway. She raises a hand from the water to flip Grace off. Then, she dives under.

“Fine,” Grace says to nobody in particular. “Sure, you do that. What are basic safety precautions, anyway.”

Jess resurfaces. “Lots of fish in here,” she says. “Big and small, they all look healthy. No dead fish caught up in the grass. So how about you get that stick out of your ass, and hop on in? It’s _nice_.”

It’s stupidly risky. But then, so was coming here in the first place and, looking out over the water, Grace swears her clothes feel twice as gritty. Her hair is just unbearable. Small, stupid things that shouldn’t matter, but however many times she tells herself that she survived worse in Afghanistan, she knows that’s not quite true. At least over there, she had her friends and fellow soldiers. Had a working radio and an internet connection, ties to the outside world. Had a goal in mind. Something to fight for.

These days it’s just her and Jess against the world. So who gives a shit if she takes a proper bath for once?

The water is cool, but not quite on the side of uncomfortable. And Jess was right; it’s so good. Grace kneels in pond mud, sinking up to her neck, rubbing at her arms and legs, between her toes and under her breasts.

“Got soap?” Jess calls.

“Yeah,” Grace tells her. “ _Don’t_ bring it into the water, we can’t pollute what we want to drink.” Reluctantly, she stands up and goes to make sure Jess obeys her.

They fill their five gallon container and carry it away from the water’s edge. Scrub hard with soap and clumps of grass, rubbing themselves raw, pushing the soap into their hair. They clean the suds off with water from the container. It’s cold; Grace has goose bumps all over her skin, she knows the soap will dry her hair out, and she thinks this might be the happiest she’s been since the bombs went off.

Afterwards, they stretch out on the sunny pond bank to dry off. Grace considers doing laundry. Decides it can wait a couple of minutes.

Jess rolls over onto her side, resting her head on one hand. The sun brings out blonde highlights in her raggedly-cut hair, and a clean face makes her scars stand out vividly. Little drops of water gleam like diamonds on her neck, dripping down her bony shoulders, chest, the curve of her hips. Grace doesn’t bother to pretend she’s not looking. Of course she is. Right now, Jess might just be the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen.

“Okay,” Jess says. Her eyes dart down Grace’s bare skin; she doesn’t seem to know where to look. “So, while we’re here and all clean and stuff. Can I eat you out?”

Grace blinks at her for a second. “Huh,” she says intelligently. “That’s a little sudden. Not gonna buy me dinner first?”

Jess rolls her eyes. “I just want to, okay?” she snaps. “You’re naked, you’re hot, I like you. I want to lick your pussy. Can I?”

Well, when she puts it like that. “Yeah,” Grace says. “Sure. Why not.”

Jess moves so fast that Grace has to wonder how long she’s been holding this in. How long she’s been stopping herself from asking; but maybe that’s on Grace herself, because she didn’t ask either. Too slow, too careful, too busy watching one thing instead of another.

Well, she’s focused on Jess now. On the wild look in her eyes as she slips down between Grace’s legs, fingers dragging through her pubic hair, pushing it back so she can lick Grace open. She is utterly unskilled, rushed and overeager; she knows what she wants, if not how to give it. Grace drops an encouraging hand down to Jess’ hair. Strokes it like animal fur as Jess buries her tongue in Grace’s pussy. Laps at her clit and, as Grace feels herself start to grow slick, slides a finger inside her.

Skill doesn’t matter all that much anyway, Grace thinks. Best thing in the world is being wanted as badly as Jess obviously wants her now. Skill can wait. She doesn’t need fucking skill. What she needs is the inelegant slide of Jess’ tongue, the way she buries her nose between Grace’s legs and breathes her in like it’s the best thing she’s tasted. Her lips catch the light and glisten, wet, and it looks so good on her.

“Can I put my tongue in you?” she asks. “You taste good, I want to. Can I?”

Grace actually laughs. “Jess, you do whatever you fucking want.”

“I want to fuck you,” Jess says. Brash and inelegant and desperately hungry for it; that’s Jess all over. And Grace wouldn’t want her any other way.

She comes to a combination of Jess’ tongue and two fingers inside her, thrusting up just a little too hard as Grace tries not to pull her hair out. She doesn’t even mind how smug Jess looks about it.

“That was awesome,” Jess tells her, with a lilt to the end of it like she’s asking a question.

“Pretty good,” Grace says agreeably. “Bet I can do you one better though.”

She does a pretty good job, if she says so herself. And she’ll have to; Jess is satisfyingly speechless.

Grace is not averse to cuddling after sex, but she can tell Jess is getting squirrely from all the contact, and doesn’t hold it against her as she moves away. Each to their own. And honestly, it’s way too nice a day to worry about something so small; she feels like there’s a miniature sun warming her insides.

_You are too damn old to lose your heart like this_ , she tells herself, and doesn’t buy it for an instant. If not now, then when? World’s ended anyway. Might as well make the most of what’s left to her.

“Gonna try catch a fish,” Jess announces suddenly. “One of the big ones, we can take it back with us.”

“Mhm. Could do some laundry while you’re at it.”

“I hate doing laundry.”

“I know,” Grace says cheerfully. She rolls over, stretching out so the sun warms her back. “I just don’t give a shit. Wash your goddamn clothes, woman, and I’ll wash mine. And _then_ we’ll see about catching one of those fish.”

In the end, Jess actually does manage to snatch a large trout from the water. She does it bare-handed, and seems as surprised about it as Grace is. It takes both of them to drag the wriggling thing back up the pond bank, where Grace puts it out of its misery with a knife. She’s not an experienced fisherwoman, but she’s done this once or twice; it only takes her the one cut. The fish dies blessedly fast.

Grace says a short, silent prayer, the way she does when she kills deer in the woods, or people in the county. She gives thanks for the gift she wasn’t expecting. For all the gifts she wasn’t expecting.

Jess lifts the trout, openly satisfied with the weight. “I’m gonna smoke it,” she says. “I know how, Uncle Dutch taught me. Be good to have some stored for winter.”

“Yeah,” Grace agrees. “Good job. Never know, if times get rough, that might just save us.” Jess’ sudden, startled smile is a beautiful thing. It lasts all the way back to the cabin.

Three days later, Grace agrees to go and visit Dutch’s bunker.

Jess is uncharacteristically enthusiastic.

“He’s gonna be so surprised to see me,” she says. “Might even be proud. But maybe not; he’s a grumpy old fucker. Might just give us the Geiger counter and tell us to fuck off back to our safe house and stop taking stupid risks.” She’s smiling, absently stroking her bow. And it’s a great smile; despite the scarring, despite how she tends to lash out if she catches anyone looking at her, Jess does have a nice smile.

Grace makes herself look away, turning back to her packing. They don’t have anything to carry stuff in, so it’ll be knotted up sheets again, looks like. Proper post-apocalypse style. They’ll need protein bars and water, ammo, first aid gear. Spare clothes and a blanket each, just in case they have to spend the night somewhere else. The larger the pile gets, the greater her apprehension.

But Jess is set on going, and Jess can’t go alone.

“He might let us have some supplies,” Jess says, almost cheerful. “I saw his bunker, it was _packed_. More stuff than he could ever use. Maybe he’ll give us some more of that powdered egg. Or some chocolate.”

_Or some way to contact the outside world,_ Grace thinks. _Some information about what’s going on, or how many people survived._

“Other people knew about his bunker, right?” Grace says out loud.

Jess nods. “Some.”

“Just thinking. Maybe some of them made it to him when shit got bad. Maybe he’s sheltering friends.”

“I feel bad for them,” Jess says. “Who would want to live with Uncle Dutch? Urgh. No offense, Uncle Dutch, but…no. Just no.” She sets the bow down at her side. Tentatively, like she’s worried she’ll get pushed away, she reaches out to touch Grace’s knee. “Do you…got someone you’re hoping to find there?”

“Anyone,” Grace says. “Jerome, or Mary May, or the Deputy, or…Anyone at all. Just to know that it’s not just us and some crazy Peggies left in the world. To know we’re not alone.” She covers Jess’ hand with one of her own. Tries to remember the last time she just sat around holding a girl’s hand. Years, maybe. Afghanistan and the Olympic Games aftermath have turned her into a solitary soul.

Jess helps her with the packing, until they both conclude that she’s useless at it. After that, she goes outside to check on the traps she spent the day setting. They’ll be leaving the cabin unattended while they’re away; neither of them is happy about it.

But it won’t be a problem. Get to the bunker, let Jess enjoy her quality family time, come back home. They know their route. They have weapons and they work as a team. They’ll be better fed than most of the people who might want to hurt them, and neither of them is sick. Dutch should be pleased to see them in such good condition. All they have to do is get to him.

And maybe he can tell them if the world has really ended.

Grace gets her packing done and sets the makeshift bag aside for the morning. She brushes her teeth with boiled pond water and toothpaste. She checks the map again.

She goes outside and fetches Jess in as the evening shadows start to swallow up the light.  Takes her down to their unlit bedroom in the bunker, stripping her bare and finding her scars in the dark with her hands and lips and tongue. She likes how Jess’ rough hands feel in her hair; how they start to pull as Grace kisses a teasing trail down from her navel. There are a lot of things she likes about Jess. Given time, she’s sure there’ll be a lot more.

They sleep together as they always do, wrapped up in each other, in the darkness and the silence of the world around them. It’s a brief, illusory safety. For a while, they can pretend the world outside is as it should be. That it still exists. That they are not alone on their own little island in hell.

They pretend it’s all going to be alright.

And in the morning, they set out for Dutch’s bunker.


End file.
